The Abbey Theatre has secured the world premiere of a new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer, actor and film director Sam Shepard, who will direct the play himself.
The production of Kicking a Dead Horse in March will also mark the return to the National Theatre of actor Stephen Rea after many years. Shepard wrote the play with Rea in mind and specifically for the Abbey.
The play will run as part of the theatre's 4x4 series in the Peacock, which will open with another world premiere, Irish playwright Mark O'Rowe's Terminus. O'Rowe's previous play, Howie the Rookie, won the best play category of The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards in 2000. Abbey director Fiach Mac Conghail said he was honoured that Shepard and O'Rowe had committed their new work to the Abbey.
Shepard is widely regarded as one of the most significant writers in contemporary American drama and is author of numerous hit plays, including Fool for Love, Simpatico, Buried Child and True West, which was produced in the Peacock earlier this year.
Other plays scheduled for the Abbey's 2007 winter/spring season include A Number, a work by British playwright Caryl Churchill; Billy Roche's The Cavalcaders and Arthur Miller's The Crucible, to be directed by former Abbey artistic director Patrick Mason.
The season opens in February with a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
Mac Conghail said the season would continue the theatre's "vision of presenting vital, challenging and engaging work which contributes to the wider social debate in Ireland and beyond".